The stories behind the buildings, statues and other points of interest that make Manhattan fascinating.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

The 1905 Revillon Freres Bldg -- Nos. 19-17 W. 34th Street

The lower floors of the Revillon Freres building, now the Martin Building, have endured repeated remodeling.

When the Revillon Brothers started their fur company in 1723
New York City was still governed by the British and the area around what would
become Fifth Avenue and 34th Street was countryside.Nearly two centuries later much would have
changed.

By the end of the 19th century the French firm Revillon
Freres was a leading retailer and manufacturer of luxury furs and
accessories.In 1890 the first store
was opened in New York on Broadway.It
was an instant success as women of the city’s carriage trade sought out custom-made
coats and wraps in exotic furs.The
company quickly erected its own building on West 28th Street.But that, too, would soon prove insufficient.

As a reflection of its high-end product, Revillon Freres included an automobile in its 1900 advertisement (copyright expired)

When the Astor Family razed their brownstone mansions on
Fifth Avenue between 33rd and 34th Streets to erect the
hulking, combined Waldorf and Astoria Hotels, the quietude of the exclusive
neighborhood was shattered.Within only
a few years the brownstone mansions in the immediate area were razed or
converted to commercial use and by 1905 broad 34th Street was lined
with high-end stores.

Two impressive brownstone mansions at Nos. 19 and 17 West 34th
Street were about to go.Owned by James
W. Pryor and Dr. Alfred L. Loomis, they sat mid-block between Fifth and Sixth
Avenues, and were being crowded out by retailers.Pryor was the first to relent.

In the place of No. 19 rose an 11-story store and loft building with a
single tenant:Revillon Freres.On February 11, 1905 the Real Estate Record
& Builders’ Guide noted that Revillon Freres had leased the building at No.
19 West 34th Street for “a term of years.”The
limestone-clad building stretched through the block to 35th Street.Foliage-carved spandrels, carved bands
between floors and Beaux Arts decoration added interest to the Italian
Renaissance-inspired structure.The
two-story base featured shallow limestone bands.

Within a year the building was enlarged to the east with the
acquisition of Dr. Loomis’s house and the erection of a matching extension.

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Below an openwork balustrade on the 35th Street side are four carved faces, two smug looking women and two aghast men.

The wealth of Revillon Freres’ customers and the expensive
nature of its wares were evident shortly after the new store opened.The firm offered cold storage to its clients
and Belinda Carbonneau placed a few items in their warehouse for safe keeping.In 1905 she called for her furs.To her dismay, and that of Revillon Freres,
her items were gone.

“The furs and wearing apparel alleged to have been lost
consisted of a $6,000 seal-lined Hudson Bay fur coat, a $200 seal-lined coat, a
robe of eagle feathers lined with lavender cloth, and an ermine stole,”
reported The New York Times.The first
coat alone would be worth about $120,000 today.

On February 2, 1908 the store advertised less expensive,
ready-made Russian pony coats, short seal skin coats and imported cloth coats
(fur lined) with prices up to $400.

A year later a New
York socialite ordered a matching muff and stole and waited eagerly for its
completion.The Moscow agent of
Revillon Freres carefully selected the matching Russian sable pelts and shipped them to New York.The muff was valued at $5,000 and the stole at $4,000.

The wealthy customer was promised delivery of her completed
furs on October 21, 1909.On October 20
the stole was completed and work continued on the muff late into the
night.The man working on the muff went
to supper and became ill at the restaurant, so he went home rather than
completing the muff.But, said The
Times, he “determined to go back to the workrooms early next morning and
complete it.When he did return the
nearly completed muff was missing.”

The theft was not only an expensive loss for the company, it
was a disastrous blow to public relations.High end retailers, then as now, were less than eager to tell a society
leader that her long-awaited purchases were lost.“It was impossible to duplicate the furs
here,” said The Times, “and so the agent in Moscow was notified and new furs
were selected and sent here, while the unsuccessful thief search went on.”

As the stock ledgers were examined, other thefts were
noticed.Police and private detectives
scratched their heads as they “scoured the city [and] they could get no trace
of the missing muff or thieves.”Law
enforcement officials gave up all hope of finding the perpetrators.

That is, until Mrs. George E. Knox
entered a Cleveland fur dealer’s shop and offered a mink and ermine set valued
at $500 “for a very small sum.”The
dealer recognized the pieces as the work of Revillon Freres and suspected foul
play.While the woman waited, he quietly
summoned the police.A traveling
salesman for Revillon Freres was brought in who recognized the stolen set.

Mrs. Knox, who also went by the name of Mary Ingram, was the
wife of George Knox, a former elevator boy at Revillon.When police found pawn tickets in a trunk in
their room, he confessed to the robberies, telling police the “jig is up.”Before long the jig was up for Thomas
Mullins, former Captain of elevator boys in the building, who was part of the
three-person ring.At the time of their
arrests, police estimated the value of the stolen pieces at $25,000.

The exquisitely carved oak leaves and acorns in the sprandrels of the 35th Street entrances, along with the decorative ironwork, hint at the original appearance of the 34th Street facades.

Revillon Freres continued its tradition of relocating uptown
and on January 3, 1912 The Times reported that negotiations were underway to
sublease the 34th Street building.“It was stated that the Revillon concern would move to new quarters in
the Fifth Avenue vicinity near by, probably taking one of the new loft
buildings aboveThirty-sixty Street,” the article said.

Indeed, by 1918 Revillon Freres had relocated to Fifth
Avenue and 53rd Street.Bedell
Company, women’s “cloak and suit” store, took over the former Revillon
Building, adding to the growing number of department stores like B. Altman and
Macy’s in the immediate area.Upper
floors were leased to wholesale garment dealers like Rotary Frocks, Inc.

Bond Thomas managed Bedell’s until just after New
Year’s in 1920.He returned to his home
in Plainfield, New Jersey after having felt ill for about a week.The retailer went to bed and never got
up.“For two weeks it has been
impossible to arouse him,” reported the New-York Tribune on January 25.Diagnosed with “sleeping sickness,” he was
examined by specialists, including his brother who was a member of the faculty
of Johns Hopkins Medical College, and his brother-in-law, Dr. Simon Flexner.

“But the results of their treatment do not encourage them,”
said the Tribune.“Nourishment is given
to the patient, but his condition is regarded as critical.”

On February 21, 1922 Martin Bulagur, president of Rotary
Frocks, pulled off an ingenious but dangerous ploy here.While he was working with buyers from
Chicago, two men entered his showroom introducing themselves as buyers from
Montreal.While Bulagur finished up
with the Chicago buyers, the two men waited in another room.

When Bulagur entered the room to work with the Montreal
buyers, he noticed several dresses were missing.“Bulagur then did some thinking,” reported
the New-York Tribune.

He questioned the men about the contents of a large duffel
bag they had with them and when they started for the elevator he went into
action.“He trust his right hand into
his hip pocket, called for them to halt and told them they’d better stay halted,”
said the newspaper.

The corny finger-in-the-pocket trick worked.The thieves believed Bulagur had a handgun
and remained frozen until police arrived.The Montreal buyers were revealed to be from the Bronx.

In 1928 architect Joseph Urban was commissioned to update
the façade of the Bedell store.The
banded limestone was replaced with four floors of sleek Art Deco polished black
granite.Panels of streamlined zig-zag motifs and
waterfall light fixtures contrasted with the dark stone.The entrance was protected by a lavish
two-story Art Deco bowed screen.

Below eight stories of Victorian facade, Joseph Urban brought the retail space squarely into the Roaring 20s -- photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Meanwhile, on West 35th Street the old Revillon
Freres façade lived on.

The wonderful Art Deco façade of Joseph Urban was demolished
only a few years later.By the 1940s it
had been replaced with a hideous, nondescript slab as Lerner Shops took over
most of the building and installed arcade windows at street level.

With the 21st century the block along West 34th
Street saw a renaissance as national chain retailers renovated old store
spaces.Banana Republic took over the
lower floors of what was now called The Martin Building and the façade was once
again revamped.Interestingly, Banana
Republic’s entrance includes a two-story bowed section reminiscent of Urban’s
design.

On the 35th Street facade, a cartouche with the Revillon Freres monogram sits among carved oak leaves.

But a walk around the block reveals the original 1905
Revillon Freres façade at Nos. 30-32 West 35th Street.A lavishly-carved cartouche beneath the
third floor cornice holds an entwined RF.The carved ornamentation from sidewalk to roof is intact—giving a
visible sense of what the exclusive furrier’s 34th Street store must
have looked like.

The banded base and Beaux Arts carvings of the 35th Street facade survive.